Headlines

AP

Steele to Democrats: I dare you to go it alone on ObamaCare

“Get it to the floor. Up or down, baby,” Steele said at a news conference at the state GOP headquarters. “Put it on the table. And if you don’t think you’ve got enough votes to get to 60, you’ve got the nuclear option. You’ve got 51.”…

“You want it done? Pass the bill,” Steele said. “But they know it’s poisonous and they know the American people will not tolerate it. They’re scrambling now and they’re beginning to turn on each other because they’ve got a big problem, a political one, and they can’t solve it.”

Because he realizes that any compromise on this mess will be a failure. The Democrats have locked the GOP out of the process anyway and accepting a couple of bones just makes them chumps.

The Democrats have backed the GOP and themselves into a corner on this thing. Steele has rightly concluded that it’s all or nothing time. Someone’s going to blink and it’s not going to be him.

Steele also knows that if the Dems use reconciliation to weasel in a takeover of 1/6 of the economy, it will create an epic $htstorm. If that happens, he wants to make sure the battle lines are clear and make sure everyone knows who owns what.

Simple put, the GOP has nothing to lose here. That sounds scary, but this is where Obama and the Democrats have brought the debate. Steele figures if he’s going down, then he’s taking these bastards with him.

How so? What if the alternate plan is completely different from what the Democrats are proposing? What if the GOP plan is to reform what we already have in place — a broken, underfunded, ill-run health care system — until of creating a new, public option plus mandates on business owners?

LastRick on August 21, 2009 at 9:28 AM

It would be completely different. But it would still involve negotiation with the Democrats and Obama wouldn’t negotiate in good faith. He’d do anything to get government control of SOMETHING which would be the wedge needed to grow it in 10 or 15 years.

Also any plan by the Republicans has to involve the insurance companies which is an automatic point in Obama’s favor or helping the poor at which point Obama can rightly claim his plan will help the poor MORE (how can “free” money NOT be the best plan?)

Total opposition is really all the GOP has. But I wish Steele’s talking points would be that the DNC is trying to usurp individual liberties and socialize the economy instead of taunting “You haven’t got the VOTES and if you DO, it’s all YOURS” Which is kind of meaningless.

One would think that if this thing is such a wonderful idea, they would just go ahead and pass it themselves (as they are surely capable) and take all the credit for themselves, thus cementing their power in Washington.

I wish they would talk about alternative health care reform such as TORT reform. I keep hearing about all these bills the republicans have, but they don’t ever talk about it.

deidre on August 21, 2009 at 9:58 AM

No, deidre, they DO talk about it. They don’t have a forum, however, as the dems won’t allow anything they propose to come to the floor, the MSM have totally shut them out, and the only place I find consistent messages from the GOP is at Redstate.com. Think about it.

That sounds like a party that doesn’t WANT to go it alone, they NEED the Republican Party to pass a bill blame when it fails spectacularly. The Democratic Party right now has all the power but no will; absolutely pathetic. Man up and own it.

This is a brilliant assault by Steele. The dems have been lockstep in saying that it’s only GOP astro-turfers. The implication is that the people still want it. Steele is asking them to back up their own spin. Test how popular this bill is.

The goal is to do the equivalent of admitting that it has been party spin all along.

It will look very bad for them to treat the bill as unpopular when it it’s only supposed to be a select group of isolated paid pubs.